The Aerodrome

The Aerodrome

“Mother you held me on your knee. Mother you worked for me. Mother, you taught me to toddle. Mother, you fed me at your dear old breast.” His voice died away to a whisper and in the ensuing silence I looked round the tent at the dim, grave faces of the...
The Penelopiad

The Penelopiad

It was stupid of Icarius to try to drown the daughter of a naiad, however. Water is our element, it is our birthright. Although we are not such good swimmers as our mothers, we do have a way of floating, and we’re well connected among the fish and seabirds. A...
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

You wake up with the answer to the question that everyone asks. The answer is Yes, and the answer is Just Like Here But Worse. That’s all the insight you’ll ever get. So you might as well go back to sleep. You were born without a heartbeat and kept alive in an...
Symbols and Signs

Symbols and Signs

For the fourth time in as many years, they were confronted with the problem of what birthday present to take to a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind. Desires he had none. Man-made objects were to him either hives of evil, vibrant with a malignant...
There Are Little Kingdoms

There Are Little Kingdoms

It was deadening winter, one of those feeble afternoons with coal smoke for light, but I found myself in reliably cheerful form. I floated above it all, pleasantly distanced, though the streets were as dumb-witted as always that day, and the talkshops were a babble of...
Damned If I Do

Damned If I Do

The Fix Douglas Langley owned a little sandwich shop at the intersection of Fourteenth and T streets in the District. Beside his shop was a seldom-used alley and above his shop lived a man by the name of Sherman Olney, whom Douglas had seen beaten to near extinction...